She wants to cry, and I want to cry with her!
I just want to weep when I get private emails like the below:
I have been reading this site for the last 72 hrs…I want to cry…for 12 yrs, on and off, I have been going to Dr’s thinking I was crazy..I am 38 yrs old and have not felt great in 12 yrs…I have had the nerve testings, I am on anti-anxiety meds, synthroid, lisonopril for high blood pressure…all these linked to my “normal” TSH of 5.48 and Ferritin level of 6.
I was told exercise more and take an iron supplement….I starved myself and never went below 160..I exercise for hours a day and weight doesn’t budge…my Dr told me to start exercising at 5 am and eat a handful of almonds several times a day, plus Fiber 1 cereal and salad…I told him I couldn’t live like that…he told me that I didn’t really want to lose the weight then…
I spent 2 months sleeping all day and staring at the tv at night in a constant panic attack, afraid to tell my husband because I thought I was losing my mind…I saw an Endo last Friday…she told me it was my thyroid and I found your site and I am not crazy or a hypochondriac….I can’t wait to start to feel better. Thank you….
Awful. No, dear one, you were never crazy or a hypochondriac. You just went through what we all have in the hands of doctors who don’t get it. And be aware: It’s not more Synthroid you need; it’s Armour, and dosing by symptoms, NOT the TSH. Demand that from the Endo. Don’t give your power away when you enter his office. www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/things-we-have-learned Keep in touch!
Important notes: All the information on this website is copyrighted. STTM is an information-only site based on what many patients worldwide have reported in their treatment and wisdom over the years. This is not to be taken as personal medical advice, nor to replace a relationship with your doctor. By reading this information-only website, you take full responsibility for what you choose to do with the information on STTM or its outcomes. See the Disclaimer and Terms of Use.
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I went 25 years of suffering as a hypochondriac. I thought i was losing it everyday and couldnt control my emotions or thoughts and wanted to end it all or just stay on zombie meds at a ward and be locked up.
It was not long ago that a friend introduced me to this site and I started adrenal glandulars to rest my adrenals(What a difference) and started supplementing iodine from kelp and dessicated thyroid. Im now actually a different person and cry when I think about how much time I wasted being ill.
Bless you all
I am so thrilled that a found this website through another website. I have felt so alone with this thyroid disorder. I got diagnosed a little over a year ago. I have been on the lowest dosage of .25 levothyroxine for the first year. Then suddenly this past spring all my terrible symptoms came rolling back into my life. So tired I can barely stay awake, my hair falling out by the handfuls, extreme digestive problems like acid reflex, constipation and diarrhea. The list goes on and on. Mot to mention that I have gained 35 pounds in the last 3 or so years. I have always kept a trim weight until this. UGH!
So now the doctor increased my dose of levothyroxine to .50 starting June 1st. I will have blood drawn this week to see if the levels are normal. I don’t feel like it is there yet. My hair is still falling out. The harder I work out with swimming and the treadmill I have actually put on a couple more pounds. Makes me want to not even bother. No wonder depression and anxiety set in for us all. I already suffer from slight depression and panic attacks. People try to say it is because I am in my early 40’s and everything is changing hormone wise. I feel like a freak of nature. I want to find the old me again. I feel like I can’t be the mom I want to be, the wife I want to be. (No sex drive there either I could care less about that.) My doctor is simply looking at the magic numbers that come back from the lab. When I first was tested the lab they were using said normal was like 1.0 to 3.5 or so and I was 4.8 then. Now they picked a different lab and normal was like 3.0 to 5.0 and my number came in at 10.0. So what one earth is going on??? Who can I trust. Only others who have this understand the excruciating suffering we go through. Thanks for all of your comments that give me encouragement! God Bless you all!!
Thank you for this heavenly and God-sent www. I am so glad for the internet. I just had radioiodine treatment for my hyperthyrodism on July 13th. I am with a new endo dr. I do not have the money to go to this md/nd who is excellent. I wanted to have another like mind. Now, he doesn’t take ins. anymore. I will save the money. It will be worth the grand to see him for 3-4 visits. But, now I can up the ante with my new dr.
In the past, my drs. have always understood that I am into natural meds. But, I did not have enough of info. I have been surfing to find out what can I do naturally and why did it come back. I treated it good and naturally, after my rad. in 02. But, needed more info this time to be on top of it. I knew there was a natural thyroid hormone out there. When I go back I can tell him and insist that I get Armour. I wanted to take the guess work out. Everyone has been promoting the synthyroid to no avail for moi.
Keep up the good work
My primary physician did not think I am crazy like others did, and ordered all the tests I asked her to order. She sent me to an endocrinologist who did not think there was a problem. My doctor ordered more tests and they all came back “normal”. She supported my decision to go to a naturopath with the lab results. I know that she wants to help me but she does not know how. Some days I thought I am going crazy, I wanted to scream because I felt horrible, and there was nobody around who could help me. And after I discovered this site I saw that there are thousands of us who go through this hell alone for many years without any treatment. This is so sad.
Hi, I’m a 24 years old buddy who has been on synthroid for 10 years now. Hives are all over my body besides every other side effects you heard before from synthroid users. Lately I have been using T-100 from aor, an otc thyroid pill. I know this is not as good as armour, though it is way much better than syntocrap! I have an appointment with a new doctor on July 31, just hope he’ll be more open minded than the one I have now to prescribe me Armour, well Erpha Thyroid in Canada. I can’t thank God enough to find your site before i was doomed with such a harmful treatment that synthroid gives!
Chris
you’re not alone and you’re not going crazy, i spent 13 years being told it was depression, it was in my head, i was lazy i needed to eat less and work out more all the while being so called borderline. tsh of 5.4 range .30-5.5 free t4 and t3 at the bottom of the range totally symptomatic. i feel robbed of what should have been some of the best years of my life, but no more!!! proper treatment will see me returned to 100% and i’m not settling for anything less. this website is great, it provides loads of easy to understand information and has caring moderators who are willing to help you find your way back to health
I came across this website as I was looking for photos for a blog. I, too, went 4 yrs with thinking that maybe I was losing my mind. My x husband would say that I was a hypochondriac. Docs told me that maybe it was stress or depression. I got a scrip for depression meds, but never filled them because i just KNEW that that wasn’t it. I researched thyroid and one doc suggested that I get tested, but they stopped taking my insurance. I went to a specialist and was finally diagnosed. My TSH is at 1.3..the lowest it’s been in years and I feel better than I had in years prior. BUT…I still am not feeling like I want to. I’m dealing with a hellish HMO, and it’s really frustrating. Though I haven’t tried armour, I did get the endo to start me on combination therapy…something she tried to talk me out of. I told her that I wanted to try it and she said she could do that but had to ‘notate’ that “I” wanted it. Believe me, I know the frustration millions of ppl go through with this disease. I wish we could stop the madness and be treated efficiently.
Hallelujah for Armour thyroid! As mentioned above, I fired the doctor who refused to give it to me – in fact, this will get a smile (or a groan from some of you). They had me on so much blood pressure medication that one day I passed out at WalMart and spent 3 days in the hospital. When this jerk doctor came to see me the morning of the day after I was admitted, she saw on my chart that I was taking Armour thyroid and demanded to know where I’d gotten it from – and I refused to tell her. Then she told me that Armour was the reason I had passed out at WalMart (darned near laughed my fanny off at that one). She hasn’t seen me since, nor will she!
I went to the Armour site and found doctors near me who prescribe it, then found through my chiropractor a gal who is in internal medicine and has quit the “being owned by the drug companies” and working at clinics, and has struck out on her own. She converted my Synthroid fake to Armour 60 mg, and 6 weeks ago, she raised it to 90mg. The next day already I couldn’t believe the difference. I got out of bed (major accomplishment) and – get this – cleaned our entire house – hosed down the shower, cleaned bathrooms, vacuumed, scrubbed Pergo – I was exhausted when I was done, and yes, I did sleep a lot the next day, but the energy was unbelievable, and I’ve been going well ever since.
However, I have another TSH (worthless) test in 2 weeks, and I am going to insist on upping the thyroid again, because I have incredibly horrible muscle spasms in my lifting and stretching muscles from my elbow to my shoulder – both sides. I went to pick up a box off a shelf today that weighed next to nothing, but it wasn’t on the edge of the shelf, so I had to stretch – hurt so bad I was sweating bullets! I need more Armour. I am thinking of asking the doc to give me an increase again, but to write me prescriptions for all the sizes – smaller ones – of Armour, that way I can add it a little bit at a time and see where I get to. I think she’ll probably cooperate!
I just found your website, and I have a lot of reading to do, but already I can say I’m really glad I found you!
So, having been diagnosed..finally, as having Hashimoto’s, yesterday and being excited about going to fill my prescription for Levoxyl, I start reading this site, and already I’m paranoid that I’m doomed to fail. I think it’s important to cite that every person’s chemistry is different. T4 meds must work for some people? I guess we’ll see. (from Janie: some do “better” than others on T4-only meds, but EVERYONE, yes EVERYONE, has symptoms related to an inferior treatment.).
I’ve been suffering my WHOLE life, working out for hours and starving myself to still be overweight, over tired and wanting to die and dealing with people who assume it must just be because I’m lazy and gluttonous. And I watch other people eat more than me, work out less and live a “normal” life that I feel I’ll never have. When I was a child, watching my mother struggle with her weight and not being able to spend time with her because she was always falling asleep, I swore I’d NEVER look like her or act like her – and here I am, the same age she was then, being exactly the way I swore I’d never be.
I’m doomed. Thanks for confirming it.
I read and understand and empathize with you and your private hell. Five years of an increasing descent into my own personal hell following an ectopic pregnancy.
Like you, obsessive at the gym 2 hours a day. Not eating, not losing weight feeling a madness consume my world. Psychosis, paranoia, panic attacks which nearly drove me to drive into a lorry. Being ignored by health professionals. One told me to go home and arrange a weekly massage and get used to it. That was the day the lorry option seemed the best.
I had terrible adrenal, thyroid of 18.96 autoimmune readings of >964 and 81.4 Bad T3 readings and was verging on a breakdown. On finding out that the tatters of my life was attributable to the thyroid adrenal and autoimmune probs was like experiencing Post Traumatic Stress. I was overwhelmed to such an extent that I asked to be committed to a psychiatric hospital. They said it was just the thyroid and did nothing except recommend CBT. No further tests or information even though they knew it was thyroid related.
When will professionals understand that the ripples of the problem engulf so many other people as well as the patient and that those patients have value and worth and are needed for the people in their lives to be happy. It isn’t just us they let down, but our families, husbands, friends and work colleagues. Perhaps we can all begin to help change this situation.
Thanks for the great website.
I have a friend who was dx’d hypo while in the hospital for over a month on an unrelated disorder. Dr. put her on Synthroid. She complained of migraines and chest pain for almost three weeks, all the while I was telling her it was the Synthroid and she needed to be on Armour. Finally found a dr. who let her take Armour and within two days of being off the Synthroid, the migraines and chest pain went away. Surprise Surprise! The kicker to me was what the original dr. (ironically, a dr. I had seen and eventually fired) said to her: “Most patients on Synthroid continue to have hypothyroid symptoms even after their TSH is normal.” DUH!!!
2 tiny, cheap tests. Thyroid antibodies tests. It took 9 years for a doctor to wake up and send me for it. I could barely move. Everything hurt. I was crazy, they said. I lost hair, gained 50 pounds, had weird hyperpigmentation. They said that’s what happens in middle age. I had depression, insomnia, high blood pressure, heart palpitations. I was sent home one time by an uncaring QUACK with a “Sugarbusters” book, and a script for antidepressants, cholesterol meds, and blood pressure meds.
My new doctor, MY HERO, asked me how I felt. He really cared. He tested my thyroid antibodies. I have Hashimoto’s throiditis. It’s that simple. I’ll take Armour. $10.00 a month is the cost of my life. I’m so angry. But I’m too tired to do anything about it. I was robbed of my life, my health. But I’m taking it back very soon. 1 week on the initial dose of meds and I can type without pain. People don’t quit!!!!!!!!!! Be informed patients. FIGHT for your rights to health. PHOOEY on the TSH. What a worthless test.
God Bless
I have been treated for hypothyroidism for almost a year now. Just within the last month, my levels have jumped from 23 to 59. Doctor just told me to double up on my 50 mcg levothyroxine. I was hoping the numbers were a fluke. Feeling like dying.